No Good Deed
by Delwin
Summary: In a less than perfect galaxy, actions don't always lead to their intended consequences. Torres and Paris (though separately this time), pre-Voyager. (Now Complete)
1. I

**Author's Note: **A follow-up to "Convergence" and perhaps more entrenched in my personal head canon than most of my other pieces, hopefully this can still be enjoyed on its own as well. This is the result of a plot bunny gifted to me by **Photogirl1890 **and was started sometime last winter - it may have the worst time spent to word count ratio in the history of fanfiction, but here it is – finally.

My endless gratitude to Photogirl for everything from the initial idea through hand-holding and patience over the months that this was ever-so-slowly-and-painfully in progress to the final beta and proof reading. Also, many thanks to **Sareki** for lending a much needed fresh set of eyes at the end.

I own nothing but borrow greedily and, again, must beg forgiveness of Jeri Taylor for both borrowing from and overwriting her pre-Voyager novel _Pathways._

**No Good Deed**

I.

_Stardate 47452: Planetoid designation Alpha 441, the Badlands..._

"Where the hell did it come from?"

Proximity warnings lit up the console before them as the monitor showed the steadily approaching blip of a Cardassian energy signature. An alarm wailed from somewhere behind and overhead.

"Through one of the plasma storms, I guess."

"It came intact _through_ a plasma storm?"

"Look, it wasn't there a minute ago, I swear."

"Well, it's certainly there now. What sort of armament are we reading?"

No response.

"Ries?"

The younger man swallowed hard. "I'm reading a thousand kilos each of matter and antimatter, plus disruptors and torpedoes of some sort."

"_Mierda_... Do we have shields?"

"The base shields are up, but they aren't going to do shit against that sort of armament."

"Do we have any ships nearby?"  
>"The <em>Val Jean<em> is the closest, but it's a couple hours away at least."

"And this...thing's...ETA?"

Silence.

"Ries?"

"Two minutes."

Bloody, fucking hell...

In the background, the alarm continued to sound.

"Shut that thing up."

Ries complied and their attention fixated on those steady, eerie _pings_ from the main monitor.

"Time?"

"Thirty seconds."

Thirty seconds. His eyes were still on the monitor but his thoughts fled a dozen light years away to a resettled homestead and a promise to return...a promise he had always intended to keep...

"Ten seconds."

Eyes closed and a prayer learned in childhood and since assumed forgotten passed across his lips.

"Three, two, one..."

And nothing.

His eyes opened.

"Ries?"

"It didn't detonate."

"What?"

"It skipped off the atmosphere without detonating." Ries's fingers moved over the board. "It's entered into a stable orbit."

Slowly, he let out a long breath, feeling only then the sweat that was soaking through his clothing. "Call in the _Val Jean_," he ordered. "I think Chakotay is going to want to have that engineer of his take a look at this one."

.

_._

_A few weeks prior..._

"You're telling me that I have Tom _fucking _Paris in my brig?"

Seeing his first officer flinch, Daniels regretted his slip into profanity, but, in the name of all that had ever been holy, _why him_?

"That's what the records show, yes, sir," was his XO's careful response, his confusion clear. Which was understandable: why would he know after all? Yent was a Napean and, as such, removed from Starfleet politics which were largely human driven; added to that, the commander had come up through the ranks on a science track and, thus, might well be unfamiliar with the more laudable exploits of the former Academy Golden Boy.

"You have no idea who he is, do you?"

With more confusion, Yent glanced down at the PADD in his hand. "Thomas Eugene Paris, former Starfleet Lieutenant, junior grade. Resigned on Stardate 45790..."

"Does the name Admiral Owen Paris mean anything to you, Commander?" Daniels interrupted.

Yent blinked with sudden, albeit partial, comprehension. "Admiral Paris. Yes, sir. And the former Lieutenant Paris is...?"

"His son," Daniels clarified, standing now and moving to the viewport, a hand coming up to rub his jaw. "And the one time presumed _next-in-line-to-become-Captain-and-then-Admiral-Paris_." He turned then to look back at Yent with some amusement. "Also one of the best pilots ever to come up through the Academy. He still holds just about every single pilot record there. Too bad we can't tell that to poor Pierce and let her off the hook for that chase he led us on."

Which, incidentally, only confirmed Daniels's suspicion that the only reason they had found the scout ship in the first place was that its pilot wanted to be found. And that the purpose of that chase had been to draw the _Trieste_ away from some bigger prize.

Damn Tom Paris anyway.

Yent, in the meantime, was considering this new information. "Why would someone with such a promising career resign his commission?" Napeans might not be up on human politics and gossip, but that didn't mean that they didn't understand career ambition.

Any remaining trace of amusement faded as Daniels answered, "Lieutenant Paris was forced to resign after an incident in which three Starfleet officers lost their lives." That was all the captain knew of the circumstances and, frankly, all that he had any interest in knowing. Unfortunately, with the younger Paris now sitting in the _Trieste_'s brig, it was unlikely that he would get off that easily.

Yent glanced down at his PADD again, clearly with some consternation that it offered so few of these details. Again, carefully, he offered, "As Mr. Paris is no longer a member of Starfleet, jurisdiction of his case would seem to belong to the Federation."

Daniels's eyes and part of his attention was back on the view in front of him. A view of the swirling plasma storms of the Badlands. Hidden in those Badlands was a growing movement of dissidents that Starfleet and the Federation – clinging as they were to the hope of the viability of the Cardassian treaty – were stubbornly ignoring, despite the numerous reports sent back by Daniels and other ships' captains in the sector.

Now Daniels appeared to have one of those dissidents in his custody. And, not just any one, but the already once disgraced son of a Starfleet admiral.

Somehow he suspected that was going to be much harder for both Starfleet and the Federation to ignore.

The captain sighed heavily, rubbing now at the back of his neck and grimacing at the tension that had already taken up residence there. Yent was likely right that this was a Federation matter, but the implications felt beyond a captain's pay grade – and sometimes it was useful to be part of a hierarchy.

"I'd like to contact Starfleet Command before alerting the Federation regional office. It was a Starfleet scout ship he was in after all, even if a long ago decommissioned one." Slim grounds, he knew, but he'd take what he could get.

He moved back to his desk and held out his hand for the PADD which Yent passed over.

"Yes, sir," the Napean replied, mostly, Daniels suspected, glad that the decision was not his to make. Yent was a competent first officer and excelled in the numerous logistical duties that his post entailed, but Daniels doubted that he would ever be ready to move further up the chain of command.

"Thank you, Commander," the captain said by way of a dismissal; Yent nodded and headed for the door. As an afterthought, Daniels added, "And Commander?" Yent turned. "Perhaps let's limit who has contact with Mr. Paris until we find out what we are to do with him. No need to jump start the rumor mill."

"Yes, sir," the commander repeated, his expression set grimly, and then exited the ready room.

Sitting down at the desk, Daniels keyed on his console before looking back down at the information on the PADD in front of him.

Tom Paris. Bloody hell.


	2. II

II.

"Back already, Torres?"

B'Elanna half-jumped at Ries's effective ambush. Hiking her duffel further up on her shoulder to discourage his casual attempt to lift it away from her, she frowned in annoyance. "You called us in, Ries. Remember?"

Ries shrugged, grinning and unfazed. "Well, technically, it was Castillo who gave the order to call in the _Val Jean_. I was merely the messenger."

Sighing against the young tech's unfailing good cheer, B'Elanna tried to rein in her own foul mood. Ries was indeed only the messenger and, further, given the amount of time that he spent stuck on Alpha 441 with only the somewhat taciturn Castillo for company, she couldn't really blame him for his...eagerness when visitors arrived. Speaking of which... "Where's Castillo?"

That, interestingly, seemed to tame the other's enthusiasm somewhat. "Packing up to head out with the _Val Jean_."

"Castillo's going off-planet?"

The base manager had been born and raised on one of the traditionalist colonies in the DMZ and there he had stayed, contentedly planet-bound until the Cardassians had come calling. His first venture into space had been on the resettlement transport that moved his family and all their belongings across the sector to a new home. His second such venture had been in search of the group of colonists and sympathizers who were rumored to be mounting a resistance against the Cardassians. Once he found the Maquis, he was all too happy to be plopped back down dirt-side and had diligently manned the hidden munitions base on Alpha 441 since.

"Only temporarily," Ries clarified. "He's headed back to his homestead." He bit at his lip, obviously keeping back more details that he was unsure whether he was at liberty to share.

"Oh," was all B'Elanna could think of to respond. And she felt what she vaguely identified as a spike of jealousy for a place – and a family – to which one could return.

Then, Ries brightened. "Apparently, Chakotay is sending Bendera down to manage things for a few weeks until he can find a more permanent replacement." The tech looked around expectantly. "I kind of thought he might come down on the shuttle with you."

B'Elanna shrugged. "Chakotay is planning on staying in orbit for at least the next couple of days. Kurt will probably head down sometime tomorrow."

By this time, they'd made their way through the narrow, winding corridors to the bunk area. B'Elanna stopped outside one of several unoccupied rooms and turned to Ries. "Look, Luca, it's good to see you, but I just pulled a double shift getting the _Val Jean_ stable before coming down here, so I really could use some rest. I'll see you in the morning, okay?"

He nodded and gave her one more bright smile before wishing her a good night and heading back toward the control room.

Exhaling slowly once he was out of sight, B'Elanna moved into the room and let the door slide shut behind her, feeling knots of tension across her shoulders loosen at least slightly as it did so. Crossing to the bunk – the only bunk in the room – she threw her bag onto one end and curled up on the other, leaning her back against the wall and pulling her knees into her chest.

She let her head fall down to her knees and closed her eyes, relishing the simple feeling of being alone.

When had she last been alone?

The _Val Jean_ was a small ship, made smaller still by the unusually large crew that Chakotay typically kept aboard. Decades before, the vessel had been designed to transport belongings and livestock out to the new colonies on the edges of Federation space. As such, it boasted a massive cargo bay, now converted by the Maquis to house a small but growing contingent of shuttles. Itself small and maneuverable enough to survive and thrive amongst the plasma storms of the Badlands and in its encounters with the Cardassians, the _Val Jean_ had also begun to act as a mobile base from which smaller sorties could be launched.

As a result, the ship, built to snugly house a couple dozen crew members, often carried forty or more. Some of the crew had taken to stringing up hammocks along the edges of the bay, trading any suggestion of privacy for at least a modicum of open space; the rest continued to crowd into the small bunk rooms. The only person with private quarters was Chakotay whose closet-sized room allowed for at least semi-private conversations when needed.

Having grown up an only child in an isolated household on a quiet Federation colony, B'Elanna had never realized the extent to which she took being alone for granted – or how much those stretches of time entirely by herself allowed her to regulate and keep in check the more explosive elements of her Klingon heritage. The last month of being in constant proximity to one or more shipmates had left her nerves stripped raw and her temper constantly in danger of flaring.

And then there was the smell.

During her (blessedly) brief visits to _Qo'noS_ as a child, B'Elanna had become well acquainted with the Klingon belief that humans had a very particular and unpleasant scent. That piece of information had both offended and confused her: offended as it was never clear whether her half-human self carried the same scent and confused because she hadn't detected any particularly strong odor from the many humans of her acquaintance. She could have asked her mother but preferred not to and had finally shrugged it off as one of those things she just wasn't Klingon enough to understand.

Then, during the _Val Jean_'s first skirmish, she discovered firsthand the scent referred to: it was the smell of human fear.

B'Elanna had already known that she reacted differently to danger and adrenaline than a full human would. Klingon hormones and physiology minimized the 'flight' aspect of the 'fight or flight' response common to humans. She had seen human classmates struggle with panic in various situations while growing up on Kessik and while at the Academy. For her, danger only clarified and sharpened her focus and thinking – as long as she could keep her temper in check.

In the close, poorly ventilated quarters of the _Val Jean, _she discovered that human panic and fear also came with a distinct, sickly sweet, lingering odor. When the small ship was attacked, she could not only see her shipmates' reaction and hear it in their voices – she could smell their fear. And when there were injuries or fatalities, the stench grew almost overwhelming.

She hated it.

A month ago, when the refit that she had led of the _Val Jean_ was complete, she had been all too happy to leave behind Alpha 441 and head out into open space. Now she found herself flooded with relief in being back on the planetoid and at the prospect of the mechanical puzzle ahead of her. Mechanical meant solvable, controllable. And machines had no smell.

Leaning her head back against the wall, B'Elanna took a deep breath and tried not to wonder what level of coward it took to run from other people's fear.

.

The construction of the Alpha 441 munitions base stood as a testament to the colonial history of the planets within the region now designated as the Federation-Cardassian Demilitarized Zone. When Chakotay and other Maquis captains first began to explore the Badlands as a possible safe – 'safe' being an extremely relative term – haven from which to launch resistance operations, they had needed a way to erect shelters and bases quickly and easily, with minimal resources. A solution had been found in the long neglected storage units from the earliest days of the Cardassian border colonies: folded, packed and minimized away were the Federation temporary shelters that had housed the terraforming engineers and the first of the settlers who would build the planets' more permanent structures. Sturdy, simple, basic – the temp shelters were ideal to meet the needs of those now scrambling to protect those same colonies.

The Alpha 441 base had been built from a series of those conveniently modular and inter-connectable shelters, which created a sprawling, winding but ultimately spacious (by Maquis standards) facility. And, the base had the added bonus of an abundant, easily accessed natural energy from the planetoid's geothermal core. That, combined with replicators that B'Elanna herself had ensured were functioning effectively during her previous stay on the base, meant that Alpha 441 was a perfect site for ships to restock – provided they were up for the trip through the Badlands' plasma storms to get there.

Given all this, B'Elanna was unsurprised to find a handful of her _Val Jean_ shipmates filling the small messhall of the base upon her arrival the following morning, all clearly enjoying the almost unheard of variety and abundance of food filling their breakfast (...or dinner...or whatever, depending what shift they had just come off of or were going back to...) plates.

Seska and Tabor sat at a nearby table, Seska's plate still heaped with traditional Bajoran groatcakes while the scraps remaining in front of Tabor suggested that he had begun his meal earlier. Indeed, as B'Elanna approached, the young Bajoran rose, offering her his seat with a smile and an explanation that he was due back up on the _Val Jean_ shortly.

After retrieving her own food from the replicator, B'Elanna settled down across from her friend, and Seska raised an eyebrow skeptically at the stack of pancakes on her plate. "I don't know how you can eat those things. They're so...bland looking."

B'Elanna snorted as she dug into the delightfully unadulterated meal. "When you grow up being forced to try a variety of pungent and lively Klingon dishes 'just one more time', maybe bland starts to look pretty good." Then she gave a glance over at the Bajoran's plate and wrinkled her nose. "What I don't understand is how you can stomach squill syrup first thing in the morning."

Raising an eyebrow, Seska practically purred, "Well, for some of us, breakfast might not be quite the first thing we get to in the morning," and she took another bite of her chosen fare appreciatively. "I, for one, have already worked up quite an appetite."

Rumors about how exactly and with whom Seska was getting in her pre-breakfast exercise were abundant aboard the _Val Jean_. B'Elanna, treated as she often was to her friend's firsthand hints about the matter, had little doubt of those rumors' veracity. All in all, though, it was a subject she would rather avoid.

"So were you finally able to get some sleep last night, B'Elanna?"

She turned to see Ries coming up behind her, tray heavily laden with what appeared to be dinner rather than breakfast. Across the table, Seska cleared her throat speculatively, her mind clearly not having moved on from its last subject of interest.

Turning back and rolling her eyes at Seska, B'Elanna's address was mostly to her food. "I slept fine." And then she added, with emphasis, "It was nice to have some time alone."

Seska just chuckled as Ries hovered near their table eying the Bajoran's plate in apparent hope that the rest of her breakfast might vanish under his gaze. Raising her brows significantly at B'Elanna, Seska took her time with soaking a particularly pungent piece of groatcake in its syrup. Ries's shoulders slumped, but he gamely smiled at both women before moving to join Henley at a table across the room.

Seska followed the dark-haired young tech, amused assessment in her eyes. "So is that why you weren't more annoyed that Chakotay was sending you back down to this rock?"

B'Elanna nearly choked on her mouthful of pancake. "What?"

The Bajoran flashed her friend a knowing grin. "Well, he is clearly interested in you." Her attention turned back to Ries and her gaze grew even more calculating and appreciative. "And he is more than a little interesting himself."

Feeling a flush creeping into her cheeks, B'Elanna focused her eyes on her food. "He's not my type," she muttered in the general direction of her plate.

"Oh?" Seska's voice held surprise. "Mmm...too bad I'm otherwise occupied then."

Which was another invitation to ask about her friend's nocturnal activities, but B'Elanna kept her attention squarely on her pancakes. She really wasn't interested in hearing the details of Seska's sex life at the moment – or really ever. The other woman's comfort in sharing those details was a source of no small amazement to her.

From across the room, she heard Ries laugh at some comment made by Henley. He really was a nice guy and, as Seska had noticed, more than a little attractive. Whether or not he was actually 'her type' was debatable – she wasn't even sure she really had a 'type'. And, yet, he was clearly interested and that interest, particularly from someone who others obviously found attractive, was flattering.

So why not take advantage of all of that?

Because it had never been, and would never be, that uncomplicated for her.

B'Elanna's steadfast focus led her to make quick work on the stack of pancakes, and she finished while Seska was still only half-way through her own meal. After enduring a couple of last innuendos from the still amused Bajoran, B'Elanna excused herself and headed up to the station's command center.

As she entered the small control room, Kurt Bendera turned to greet her with his usual easy smile.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to get down here and check out your newest puzzle," Kurt teased, pulling up several files on the screen in front of him and gesturing to the only other chair in the room.

B'Elanna pulled the chair over beside him to get a good look at the screen. "Even I need to sleep occasionally, you know," she returned. "Have you already been through the data Ries and Castillo have been able to gather?"

Kurt nodded. "This thing must have scared the shit out of them, popping up out of nowhere like that." He maximized the partial schematic that the computer had been able to compile from the sensor reports. "Check out the payload its carrying."

"The Cardassians certainly don't do things in halves." B'Elanna shook her head. "That wouldn't have just taken out the base: it would have taken the entire planetoid with it."

Kurt nodded again. "Nice little statement that."

B'Elanna grimaced, acknowledging the truth of his words. "So what happened?"

"This," Kurt replied, focusing in on one area of the collected data. B'Elanna read through it, re-read and then snorted in disbelief.

"They used a kinetic detonator?"

"Evidently, yes."

"Why?"

Bendera shrugged and then crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the console. "If I had to guess: politics. One faction authorized the building of this thing. Another faction cut the funding at the last minute." He glanced toward the schematics on the screen. "I doubt they actually built it with us in mind. We aren't _that_ much of a nuisance to them," and then he added with a twisted grin, "yet."

"A left-over from the war with the Federation?" B'Elanna guessed, leaning forward now and scrolling through the data.

"Likely," Bendera agreed and then grinned as B'Elanna came to a dead stop in her scrolling and sat upright. "I was wondering how long it would take you to find that."

She shot him a look. "You weren't going to just tell me?"

His grin widened. "I know you better than that, Torres. You like finding things for yourself."

She rolled her eyes but then focused on the piece of information on the screen in front of her. "It has a breathable atmosphere. We could get inside of it."

"'_Could_' might be optimistic," Bendera pointed out. "I'm guessing one can't simply beam aboard uninvited."

But B'Elanna's mind was already racing ahead, considering the possible tactical importance of the find, wondering what it might be possible to discover about Cardassian technology from the missile and how, then, that information might be used. It was like the inverse of a Trojan horse left on their doorstep – meant as a weapon but ultimately a gift. She shrugged off Kurt's uncharacteristic caution. "So we'll hack into it," she replied, fingers already busy on her console. "You up for it, Bendera?" She paused for just a moment to throw her fellow Maquis a wicked grin.

Kurt just chuckled, sitting forward and lacing his fingers to crack his knuckles. "Always, Torres. Just tell me where you want me to start."

And with that, the two of them began knocking on the door of their Cardassian horse.

.

.

Thirty days.

Thirty days since the _Trieste _had appeared on his scout ship's sensors.

Thirty days of being passed from one starship brig to the next while Starfleet and the Federation tried to figure out what to do with him.

Thirty days with very little to do except to think. And then to think some more.

During those first days on the _Trieste_ when Captain Daniels had personally appeared to explain the ambiguity of his situation, Tom took the news with a level of equanimity. He was, frankly, still on something of a high from having (finally) done The Right Thing in sacrificing himself to lead the _Trieste _away from the limping _Liberty _and the rest of his Maquis shipmates. And, while it hadn't been his intention to create a political conundrum for the powers-that-be, he'd admit that doing so did give him a certain level of satisfaction.

Further, there was the interesting dance with Daniels himself as both he and Tom pretended that they had not, in fact, met several times a decade or so earlier at various formal and informal gatherings of Starfleet captains and brass hosted by one Admiral Paris and his wife with their young family in attendance. (_Daniels was a Scotch man if he was remembering correctly..._)

A month later, Tom found the whole situation much less amusing.

Some bright young thing – perhaps the _Trieste'_s first officer? – had thought to supply Tom with an alias and a number before he traded hands the first time. While he doubted that the prisoner's convenience had been taken into account in that decision, he nonetheless appreciated the relative anonymity that it granted to him. With no further visits from captains whom he might have known in a previous life, Tom at least only had to suffer the stares of the curious and clueless rather than the disdain of the unfortunately many in Starfleet to whom the name 'Tom Paris' might be all too recognizable.

When at last the news was passed to him that the vessel currently hosting him in its brig – the_ Yorktown _– was, in fact, headed back to Earth, the information came as a relief if only because it was a change from the interminable unknowing.

Earth. Home.

A home that Tom had thought he had left for good.

A home where that alias and number were going to cease to do him any good in a hurry.

A home where anonymity had never been an option.

Starfleet's prodigal son was returning.

Whether he was wanted or not.


	3. III

III.

_His scent was intoxicating._

_ She moved in closer, exploring his neck and shoulders with her tongue and lips, moaning against the pull of that scent, so different from the smell of fear, so inviting and invigorating._

_ Her teeth sank into flesh and she tasted blood, pulling her on to full arousal._

_ Then she heard the laughter and, from somewhere in the back of her mind, panic threatened to swell. But this laughter was husky with delight, matching her own building desire, rather than mocking it._

_ She looked up into those eyes, finding them alive and sparking with intensity._

_ Blue eyes. Framed by tousled, sandy hair. _

_._

_ What the hell?_

_._

"B'Elanna? Are you in there?"

B'Elanna awoke to the sound of physical knocking on her door and Ries's concerned voice. She shook her head and blinked hard, trying to rid her mind of that final image from her dream.

What the hell was _he_ doing in her head?

Taking a deep breath, she called back, "Give me just a minute," before pushing herself up and out of her bunk and crossing to the sink to splash some water on her face.

With effort, she brought her breathing back to its normal pace. Then, pulling on the couple of articles of clothing that she had bothered to shed before collapsing onto the bed still mostly dressed a few hours before_, _she moved to the door and keyed it open.

"Everything okay?" Ries asked, obviously worried. "I tried the door chime, but you didn't answer."

"Fine, Luca," she assured him, even mustering a small smile to which he responded all too readily. (..._Would she really have preferred that her dream featured the dark-haired, eager young tech? Definitely best to banish that whole line of thought entirely...)_ "I just must have been more tired than I realized." She rubbed at her eyes, only partially for effect. "What can I do for you?"

"Chakotay's on base and wanted to talk to you before the _Val Jean_ breaks orbit," Ries explained. "I offered to come get you."

Stepping into the hallway and letting the door close behind her, B'Elanna began to move toward the control room with Ries at her side. Only then did she notice the bag slung on his shoulder. "Going somewhere?" she asked, indicating the duffel.

Ries grinned. "I'm headed out on the _Val Jean_."

She paused mid-stride, blinking at him. "You're what?"

"Chakotay decided that since he'd be down both you and Bendera for the next few weeks an extra tech would be useful." The grin widened. "Maybe I'll finally get to see some action."

B'Elanna started moving again, unsure why the news bothered her so much. She was used to thinking of Ries as young, but he couldn't be any younger than she was herself. He just seemed so...innocent, perhaps? If it was possible for a Maquis to be innocent. The idea of him standing in the _Val Jean'_s engine room as it shuddered and consoles sparked under a Cardassian attack, his fear and panic all too obvious... She shook her head and spoke more roughly than she intended. "That Cardassian missile wasn't enough action for you?"

His smile disappeared at her tone. "Well...yes...I mean..."

Sighing, B'Elanna checked herself and managed an encouraging grin. "Sorry – I didn't mean it that way. You're definitely due for some time off base."

That was apparently enough to satisfy him and his usual cheerful expression returned as they approached the entrance to the control room.

Chakotay looked oddly out of place seated in the command center of Alpha 441, and B'Elanna realized to what extent she had begun to identify him with the _Val Jean_ itself – and before that the _Liberty_. While small groups of Maquis were often off-ship on various sorties and missions, the Captain himself almost always stayed aboard. In fact, she didn't think she had seen him off the ship since the _Val Jean_ had launched from Alpha 441 weeks before.

He rose to greet her, giving a small, rare smile. "Kurt said you've made some progress."

She grinned back, glad to have good news to share. "I think we have, yes." Moving to the console, she pulled up one of the analyzed data sets that she and Kurt had been working on over the last couple of days. "_Dreadnought _appears to operate under several stages of alertness depending on its proximity to its target. Stage one is the highest level and then all the way down to stage five, which is basically a sleep mode." She looked back over to the Maquis captain. "Its failure to detonate seems to have led to some internal confusion, and it now appears to be cycling erratically through all five stages. If we can figure out how to freeze it at stage five, we should be able to beam aboard the missile itself." Her grin widened. "Who knows what we might find? Cardassian tech definitely, and likely tactical data as well." Then she folded her arms, looking back over the data with satisfaction. "Hell, we might even be able to throw this thing right back at the Cardassians."

B'Elanna didn't miss the tightening of Chakotay's expression, but his question was simple enough. "'_Dreadnought_'?"

"We needed a name for it. '_ATR-4107' _was getting cumbersome," Bendera offered helpfully.

"It's still completely functional," B'Elanna jumped back in. "The only reason that it malfunctioned was the antiquated detonator that they used. We should be able to have that fixed up and have it ready to send wherever we want in a week or two."

Looking back down at the schematic, Chakotay pursed his lips and slowly shook his head. "No." He turned back to her, straightening. "Get whatever information you can from it and any tech that can be of help to us. But it's not worth the risk to use it offensively."

B'Elanna frowned, confused. "Risk? But that's exactly it. There wouldn't be..."

Chakotay cut her off with a gesture. "I need to get back up to the _Val Jean. _We'll be back in a couple weeks' time and you can update me then."

Hearing the clear dismissal in his voice, B'Elanna bit at her lip but nodded.

"See you in a couple of weeks then," Chakotay said, nodding to Bendera and then grasping her shoulder briefly before heading out of the control room with Ries trailing after him.

Once they were gone, B'Elanna slumped down in the empty chair.

"Doing okay there, Torres?" Kurt asked, eying her with concern.

She snorted, mentally working her way back through the brief conversation with Chakotay. "He didn't even listen to me – blew me off like some upstart kid."

Bendera considered that – and her – for a moment before leaning forward and responding carefully, "B'Elanna, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Captain has all the faith in the world in your technical ability and absolutely trusts your judgment with anything related to his ship's engines or anything else mechanical."

B'Elanna raised an eyebrow, prompting, "But...?"

"But this may not be as black and white as mechanics and programming," Bendera finished.

She stood then and began to pace in the small space, a hand on her hip. "It's a weapon, Kurt. A long-range weapon that would allow us to gain an advantage with minimal risk – and no casualties." Her voice wasn't quite as steady as she would have liked on those last words. The additional concern showing in Kurt's eyes suggested that that had not passed unnoticed.

But he only held out a pacifying hand. "Let's get into the thing first, okay? Before we try to figure out what to do with it. One step at a time."

She took a deep, steadying breath. This wasn't the Academy and this wasn't another of her seemingly endless arguments with the professors there. This wasn't theoretical, and the stakes were too high for her pride to get in the way of the work that needed to be done.

Another deep breath. "Okay," she acknowledged, nodding. "What's next?"

.

.

The move from the ship's brig to an empty but comfortable conference room would have been enough to tip him off as to who his visitor was. The added offer of a full shower and a change into freshly replicated clothes ahead of the meeting only confirmed the suspicion.

Nonetheless, his mind stubbornly pushed the knowledge away, choosing to focus instead on the blue and green orb hanging outside the generous observation windows.

Earth.

Home.

"Thomas?"

He'd somehow missed the telltale swish of the room's door opening and turned to meet the eyes of Admiral Owen Paris across the conference table – eyes which mirrored his own in both color and impassivity. "Dad," he acknowledged.

Tom's arms had been lightly crossed as he contemplated the view of Earth from the viewport. Now he felt a sudden, ingrained impulse to drop them behind his back into a parade rest position. In annoyance, he tightened their cross instead.

His father, of course, noticed the posture and seemed to consider for a moment whether to comment on it before instead indicating the chairs around the table. "Shall we sit?"

_He's trying, _some part of Tom's brain insisted. Reigning in his more puerile impulses, Tom nodded and settled into a chair, just as deliberately uncrossing his arms and resting his hands together on the table.

He expected his father to offer the opening gambit and was thus surprised when the silence between them stretched, the thoughts behind the Admiral's tight expression unreadable.

"How's Mom?" Tom finally asked with a reasonable amount of neutrality.

"Worried about her son," was his father's response.

Which was enough to put Tom firmly back on the defensive. "Well, she should be relieved to know that I now find myself back within the warm embrace of Starfleet."

That sparked a reaction in the Admiral's eyes. "This isn't a joking matter, Thomas."

"I assure you that I'm not laughing."

A heavy sigh. "Thomas, I'm not here to spar with you."

"Then why are you here, Dad?" Tom's arms were once again folded as he leaned back in his chair.

Admiral Paris eyed his son steadily. "I came to tell you to make a deal."

Tom felt his stomach lurch and, despite his best efforts, he knew that some of his surprise must have showed on his face. His voice, when it came, was at a far more adolescent register than he would have preferred. "You want me to do _what_?"

"To make a deal, son." His father's own face was still impassive and unreadable.

At the confirmation, Tom's insides churned again, and this time he didn't even bother to try to keep the disbelief and confusion out of his expression. "You – _you, _of all people – are telling me to make a deal?" he stammered. "_You_ are telling me to betray my shipmates? My crew? To hand them over in order to make my own life more comfortable?"

The Admiral waved his hand dismissively. "That's phrasing it a bit dramatically, don't you think?" he asked. "This isn't a Starfleet ship and Starfleet crew we're talking about. These people are engaged in illegal activities. Helping to bring them to justice would be the right thing to do and would begin to atone for your mistake of falling in with them." He even gave a small smile. "That's what these deals are supposed to do after all: atone for mistakes."

'_The right thing to do_...' For six weeks, Tom had sustained himself through isolation and uncertainty with the thought that he had in fact and finally done exactly that: the right thing.

And now, with a literal wave of his father's hand, he felt that bulwark crumbling.

"I still can't believe you are suggesting this," Tom tried again, mostly because he was at a loss for any other response.

His father's expression hardened ever so slightly. "This isn't the time or the place to play hero, Tom. These criminals aren't worth it."

"No honor among thieves, Dad?"

The Admiral eyed him steadily, his own expression still giving away very little. "I see you are not in the mood for this conversation right now, Thomas..."

"Yeah, a few weeks stuffed into starship brigs will do that to you," Tom interrupted with a smirk, pushing back now, determined to elicit some visible reaction.

"You _chose_ to get involved with those radicals," the Admiral threw back and Tom was absurdly pleased to hear the real anger now edging his voice.

"That's right, I did," Tom agreed, now tightening the fold of his arms into a challenge. "What else would anyone expect from Starfleet's biggest fu...screw up?" Even without the profanity, the taunt was clear and his father stood up angrily, hands leaning on the table between them.

"Obviously it was a mistake to come here today," the Admiral still managed to keep his voice reasonably restrained. "I'll try again after you've had some time to rest and think about your options."

Tom raised an eyebrow ironically. "What exactly do you think I've been doing for the last month and a half, Dad?"

His father just shook his head, his lips now thin, his mask of impassivity effectively stripped. Pyrrhic victory, that.

With one last, obvious attempt to keep his voice controlled, the Admiral concluded, "I'll come again in a few days. Maybe a week if I get called away to deal with the flare up between the Anticans and the Selay."

"Don't rush back." Tom gave his own bitterness free rein. "Wouldn't want to disappoint the Anticans."

Starting to say something in response, his father apparently thought the better of it and, with a short nod, turned and walked out, leaving Tom sitting alone once more staring at the opposite wall and the display of models of earlier ships which had carried the _Yorktown_'s name, each mounted in a glass case. The viewport's vista was imperfectly reflected in that glass, and Earth appeared oddly distorted and unfamiliar.

Welcome home, Tommy boy.

.

.

"_Unauthorized entry detected. Initiating DNA scan_."

That voice. So cold, even for a machine. Almost reptilian. Definitely Cardassian.

An unpleasant shiver raced up B'Elanna's spine as _Dreadnought_'s scan flashed over her. Two times she had come face to face with Cardassians, heard those bloodless voices – and both times had escaped only by sheer luck of timing and with others' help.

"_Identity confirmed. Torres, B'Elanna. Your presence has been authorized_."

"So glad you approve," B'Elanna muttered to herself, shaking off the chill and moving to the nearest console. Opening her toolkit, she pulled out a tricorder, cursing lightly as it took two tries and a hard slap to get the thing to power up: the Maquis took what they could get in terms of technology and tools but even by their standards, this particular device was due for an upgrade. Once it was on, however, a quick scan gave her the confirmation that she needed, and she pulled out a hand-held communicator.

"Torres to Bendera."

:_Bendera here. Had me worried for a minute there, Torres_: Bendera's voice held both a question and an, albeit mild, reproach.

"Sorry, Kurt." She set the communicator down on the panel in order to work as she spoke. "I wanted to make sure that we didn't have a third party listening in." Carefully, she began to tap on the console, calling up limited power and functions. "But _Dreadnought_ here appears to be frozen in stage five as planned."

:_Did you have any difficulties with it recognizing your biosignature?_:

"None at all." Another couple of commands brought up some working lights and access to a listing of the missile's basic systems. "Our remote hack into the maintenance personnel database seems to have worked. For once, everything actually seems to be going as planned."

:_Glad to hear it_: Bendera's voice left no doubt about the sincerity of his words; he'd been less than happy with the fact that she would be transporting to the missile on her own. :_Do me a favor and keep an open comm line, okay? I know you aren't likely to be exactly chatty, but it would make me feel somewhat better about this whole thing_:

"Sure, Kurt," she replied, but her attention was on the information that was now scrolling by on the screen in front of her.

Propulsion; operations control; defense; weapons; diagnostics -

..._navigational systems_...

Her eyebrow twitched upward. "Computer, access navigational systems and show this missile's route since its launch."

Silence met her request. Of course: there was no voice interface at stage five. "Kurt," she turned her attention back to the communicator. "I'm going to move _Dreadnought_ back up to its stage four status."

A pause. :_Are you sure that's wise, B'Elanna?_:

She bit at her lip, hoping she wasn't about to make a mistake that would be catastrophic for both of them. "Stage four is still a stand-by level. But it will power up enough systems that I'll actually be able to make some progress. I can't do much in the power save mode."

Bendera's sigh was audible even over the less than stellar communications line.

:_Just try not to get us blown up, okay?_:

B'Elanna smiled thinly. "Don't worry, Bendera. I never did buy into the 'today being a good day to die' line." A few more taps on the console, and _Dreadnought_ came suddenly to life around her.

"_Establishing stage four status_," the computer announced in that voice like nails on a chalkboard, and B'Elanna came to a quick decision that the navigational logs could wait.

"Computer, access operations control, specifically voice interface – let's see if we can make you just a little more 'user friendly', shall we?"


	4. IV

IV.

"_Dreadnought_, let's take another look at those thoron shock emitters of yours. Are they standard issue for Cardassian vessels?"

Sprawled beneath one of the missile's control panels, B'Elanna continued her steady inventory of _Dreadnought_'s 'spare' parts and pieces while she quizzed the computer for tactical data.

_"Yes, B'Elanna. The thoron shock emitters used on _Dreadnought _are identical to those used on all Cardassian vessels commissioned by the Central Command in the last ten years,_" the computer responded in its now much improved – though still becoming somewhat monotonous after a couple weeks of solo onboard work – voice. B'Elanna had had limited options when she began her little reprogramming venture and Bendera had been more than happy to tease her at every opportunity for the resulting unintentional act of narcissism.

"Does the component have any known weaknesses?"

"_I do not understand your question, B'Elanna_."

She pulled out from under the console and, sitting up, gestured with a hand. "Hypothetically, are there circumstances under which the use of the emitter might cause failures in any other systems? Or under which the emitters themselves might malfunction?"

Over the last two weeks, she had learned that the best way to elicit information from _Dreadnought_ was the use of hypotheticals. Designed as it was for long-range, largely unmonitored missions, the weapon had been given an amazingly sophisticated central processor and had been programmed to evaluate and react to unforeseen data and circumstances. B'Elanna couldn't help wondering what its creators' original intentions for the missile were. She found herself agreeing more and more with Kurt's assessment that it couldn't have been developed for the relatively low-level annoyance that the Cardassians had found in the Maquis.

_"Hypothetically, use of the thoron shock emitter at full power would result in a destabilization of the reactor core. It is therefore recommended that the emitter not be used above three-quarters power._"

"Huh." B'Elanna made a mental note of that. "And under what circumstances, hypothetically, might the emitter be used at full strength, despite those recommendations?"

"_Were _Dreadnought_ to come under a full attack from a vessel with sufficient shielding while at stage two alert status, the emitters would be fired at full power to ensure that the missile would remain intact and would be able to complete its mission._"

B'Elanna nodded, satisfied. "Good enough. Thank you, _Dreadnought._"

"_You are welcome, B'Elanna_."

From a nearby console, her communicator beeped and she moved to open a line. After the first few days of her work on the missile, Bendera had been satisfied that _Dreadnought_ was relatively harmless in its current state and, admitting that listening to a two-sided conversation in a single voice was driving him somewhat insane, agreed to keep communicators on standby but to forgo the open line.

"Torres here. What do you need, Kurt?"

:_If you can tear yourself away from talking to yourself, the _Val Jean _is due to report in about an hour. I'm sure Chakotay will want a status report directly from you_:

Right. She had forgotten about that. She sighed heavily, glancing around at the various open panels and unfinished tasks. "Let me finish up here, and then I'll be down in a few minutes."

They knew each other well enough for her to picture easily his skeptical reaction to that.

:_A _few_ minutes, B'Elanna. You know Chakotay won't want to leave the line open for long_:

"I know," she acknowledged. "Let me just close up a couple of things."

When, forty-five minutes later, she rushed into the base's control room, Bendera merely glanced up from the PADD he was reading with an expression of amazement. "You made it."

Refusing to dignify that with a response, she swatted away his feet which were propped up on the console so that she could insert the data chip she was carrying.

"So what did you get from _Dreadnought_ today?"

"See for yourself," B'Elanna invited, moving so that he had a clear view of the screen.

Kurt squinted at the image presented there and then whistled softly. "Is that where it came from?"

B'Elanna nodded. "Aschelan V. Evidently, along with being a fuel depot, it is also one of the Cardassians' more advanced weapons development centers."

Bendera gave her a knowing look. "You're going to try to convince Chakotay that we should send _Dreadnought _back where it came from, aren't you?"

"It's an obvious choice, isn't it?"

"Obvious to you..." Kurt began, but B'Elanna was already making her argument. "This missile has one of the most sophisticated processing units I've ever seen, Kurt. I can prep it for any contingency: plasma storm, encounter with another Maquis ship or with a Starfleet patrol. I could program it to respond to any Cardassian threats and to ensure that it wouldn't be reappropriated by them. I could..."

"B'Elanna – " Kurt held up a hand to stop her. "I'm not the one you have to convince. Chakotay makes the tactical decisions."

At that, she slumped back down into the second chair. "And he's already made clear what he thinks of my idea," she muttered.

Before Kurt could respond, a flashing light indicated an incoming subspace communication. Bendera tapped open the line. "Alpha 441 here. How's everything going today, _Val Jean_?"

Chakotay's voice came through, hurried and static ridden _:_Val Jean_ here. We're coming into you ...now...heavy attack...We suffered damage...cascade failure...casualties...lost Benso__n, Solin.__..Ries..._:

Ries.

Her stomachs twisted, and she felt bile rising in her throat. Hastily, she swallowed hard.

Kurt was responding, getting an ETA for the _Val Jean,_ determining what might be needed immediately upon its arrival.

She closed her eyes, trying to picture Ries's broad, carefree smile. All she could see were his eyes staring blankly ahead, his expression frozen in panic and fear.

Had he seen it coming? Had time to react at all?

A sticky, overly sweet odor closed in on her.

"B'Elanna?"

Kurt. His hands were on her shoulders, and he was shaking her, none too gently. She forced her eyes back open, swallowing hard again.

"We need to get some supplies replicated to have ready when the _Val Jean_ arrives." Insistence and concern vied in both his tone and expression.

"Right," she responded in a voice that sounded at least reasonably like her own. Kurt nodded, somewhat reassured.

She stood to follow him out of the control room, taking one last glance at the data she had taken from _Dreadnought_ and that trail leading back to Aschelon V.

.

.

In the end, the trial was a quiet affair.

Perhaps having learned something from the media circus that had surrounded the younger Paris's abrupt departure from Starfleet two years earlier and still very eager to minimize discussion of what those on the inside were now regularly referring to as 'the Maquis problem' outside the walls of officialdom, the Federation powers-that-be had arranged for _a-legally-fair-enough-and-most-definitely-speedy_ trial within days of Tom's arrival on Earth.

And then – evidently before the Anticans and their neighbors had managed to resolve their latest dispute – Tom found himself with an eighteen month sentence (with credit for his time served in the questionable hospitality of all those starship brigs) and on a transport to the Federation rehabilitation colony in Auckland, New Zealand.

The deal that the Admiral had urged his son to make had been left on the table – literally. Tom had stood up and walked away from the two legal experts debating its merits, one of whom was his assigned counsel. Calling for the security officer, he had retreated to the solitude of his holding cell, where he still had some shredded hold on a sense of right and wrong.

Eighteen months.

(_Where had he been eighteen months ago? Stumbling around some hell-hole of a bar, no doubt. And six months before that he had been an ensign on the _Exeter,_ waiting on a promotion to lieutenancy. A couple of lifetimes ago..._)

Below the shuttle, the Rangitoto crater rose above the early morning mists which clung to the lower shores of the Hauraki Gulf – it was a damp, early spring morning in Auckland.

One could survive anything for eighteen months – closer to fifteen with the time already served really...

The transport's touchdown on the penal colony's landing pad was hard and irrevocable, indicative of a lack of skill that, despite everything else currently churning through his mind, Tom both noticed and found inexcusable. But as the doors of the small craft opened to the cool, still air of New Zealand, an unshakeable sense of dread overwhelmed other impressions.

Anything, for eighteen months...

Right.

.

.

"_Initiating DNA scan: Hello, B'Elanna. Your last system access was at 1200 hours. Your return was not anticipated until tomorrow at 0600 hours. Have you had a pleasant evening?_"

"I've had better," B'Elanna shot back, throwing her tool kit angrily onto the nearest available console. Opening the kit, she pulled out an iso-modulator and stared at it blankly for several seconds before dropping it again. Leaning her elbows down to the console, she closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her palms hard against them, admitting to the empty air, "In fact, I don't think I've had much worse."

Again the image of Ries, features frozen in a mask of death, formed behind her eyelids.

Ries, Benson, Solin – three dead. And the base's messhall-turned-infirmary crowded with a half dozen more who were severely injured.

And it shouldn't have happened. For once, the _Val Jean_ had outmatched its Cardassian opponent. The cascade failure that had ripped through engineering with devastating effect mid-attack had been the fault of a single overtaxed, outdated isolinear subprocessor.

Had she only been there, surely she would have noticed some power fluctuation or some wavering reading – something that could have predicted the catastrophe in time to prevent it...

But the rational part of her brain insisted that that line of thought was complete folly. The _Val Jean_ was an old ship – an antique a couple times over. Such failures were part of the risk the Maquis took when, in desperation, they chose to use whatever resources they could find.

Risks that led to meaningless deaths.

Over and over and over...

.

_Chairs and tables had been pushed hastily toward the walls, allowing space in the middle of the base's messhall for the assorted cots and beds that she and Bendera had dragged in. The smell of charred flesh and ionized clothing permeated the room, overwhelming the station's environmental filters. Those with the worst injuries had finally been sedated and the room had quieted. _

_ To one side, three covered bodies lay all too quietly._

_ Finally having a moment to stand still, B'Elanna surveyed the scene with horror. "This is insanity."_

_ "War usually is."_

_ She hadn't realized that Chatokay had come in behind her. She twisted to face him, bristling._

_ "This isn't a war. It's a slaughter."_

_ It had been Chakotay's turn to bristle._

_ "We're holding our own."_

_ "You call _this_ 'holding our own'?"_

_ "Every war, every battle has casualties."_

_ "These aren't casualties of war. They're victims of a massive failure of antiquated equipment that had no business being anywhere other than a Zakdorn scrapyard."_

_ "So what would you suggest?" _

_ Even in B'Elanna's agitated state, she had noticed the captain's voice, tighter than she had ever heard it and with a touch of danger there. Covered in the various shades of his own people's blood and his leather garments burned by the treacherous consoles of his own ship, Chakotay had looked nothing like the calm and patient mentor she had considered him to be over the last couple of months. She had recognized that she should have known better: that this was not the time to challenge him. _

Should_ have known better._

_ "Start by tossing _Dreadnought_ back at them."_

_ Thrown down like a _d'k tagh_ between them, the vehemence of her words had shocked even her. Chakotay's dark eyes had turned to flint and his voice had dropped to a hiss._

_ "We've discussed this before. The answer is the same: no."_

_ "We didn't 'discuss' it. You didn't even..."_

_ "No." _

_ The single, strangled syllable had finally stopped her. Her gaze had focused on Chakotay's features and, instinctively, she had taken a step back. _

_ A beat and then two had passed before the captain spoke again._

_ "We can't risk it."_

_._

She had wanted to protest, to argue, but words refused to form. A second later, Kurt had called from across the room and Chakotay had moved away without another word.

"_B'Elanna, analysis of your vital signs indicates significant agitation. Do you require assistance?_"

She straightened and opened her eyes – and found herself staring at the route that, in her haste, she had left displayed on _Dreadnought_'s main monitor.

Reaching out, she gently touched the flashing beacon that was Aschelon V.

"Maybe," she whispered. "_Dreadnought_," she addressed the computer, "if we were to give you a new set of mission parameters, where would we begin?" Her lips twisted just slightly into a smile without any mirth. "Hypothetically, that is."


	5. V

V.

On any other day, he would have said no. But today – after _that_ dream – he needed to know. Needed to hear that they were safe – that it was, in the end, just a dream.

Moira was waiting for him, pacing restlessly around the visiting area. Tom stood for a moment outside the room, mentally adjusting to the sight of his sister and preparing for the encounter with one of the few people whom he could neither flatter with his charms nor put off with his defensiveness. With barely eighteen months separating them, he and Moira had grown up together, constantly moving between fierce rivalry and even fiercer comradeship. Their much older sister, Kathleen, had been worshiped from afar, but he and Moira had been peers and best of friends.

She was one of the few people – perhaps that only person left – from whom he couldn't hide.

Moira looked up as soon as he entered, crossing to him without hesitation and pulling him into an embrace.

He managed not to flinch, but she caught his hesitation nonetheless. Pulling slightly away, she looked up at him questioningly.

Kath might have guessed about the bruises – physician that she was, she was trained to notice such things. None were visible; Tom had made sure of that before coming down to the visiting area. It was, though, the larger, psychological discomfort that Moira had immediately picked up on.

When had he last embraced someone out of real affection?

The guard, standing to the side of the room, cleared his throat. There was, after all, a policy against physical contact between inmates and visitors. Tom smirked, realizing that Moira's presence had re-conferred upon him the 'exception' status usually awarded to the offspring of a Starfleet admiral. Moira just threw a winning, grateful smile over at the guard that had him blushing and smiling back as she guided Tom over to one of the nearby tables.

"You still know how to always get your way, don't you?" Tom opened as they sat down, indicating the guard's reaction.

Moira shrugged. "You're here talking to me, aren't you?"

Tom looked down at his fingernails. "I guess Mom wasn't too happy that I turned down her request to visit?"

"Not too happy, no," Moira's reply was soft but even.

Tom lifted an eyebrow. "I notice you didn't bother to ask ahead of time."

"I learned from the best that it's often easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission."

Tom's chuckle lacked any real humor. "I still could have said no when you got here."

His sister nodded, acknowledging that. "Why didn't you?"

Tom hesitated for a second. "I needed to know: is everyone okay?"

Cocking her head, Moira gave him another assessing look, clearly trying to determine where that question was coming from. Nonetheless, she answered with reassurance, "Everyone is fine. Mom and Dad are home. Kath is on deep space assignment but checks in regularly. We're all fine."

Something deep in his chest relaxed as nightmare images of spinning shuttles and bloodied faces – belonging not, this time, to fellow officers but to his closest family – faded. "Thanks," he said simply. Moira nodded again in silent reply, not pressing for further explanation of the question's origin.

"How's Joaquim?"

Moira smiled, not bothering to hide her pleased surprise that her brother had remembered her husband's name – which was fair enough given the state he had been in when she had dug him out of the sewers of Marseilles to let him know of her engagement. "He's good. We're good." And, then, sitting forward, she added, "He'd like to meet you."

Tom snorted at that, gesturing generally to the room around them. "I'm not currently quite in a situation to offer the customary Paris hospitality."

"Tom..."

Hearing the reproach in his sister's voice, Tom quickly cut her off. "Come on, Moira, I seriously doubt that anyone – even your husband – really wants to be dragged into a Federation penal colony to meet a common criminal."

"Except you're not."

"Not what?"

"A common criminal." Moira gave him a shrewd look. "I get what I want, remember? I got Dad to tell me what had really happened – how you ended up in here." She leaned further toward him. "Tom, you did the right thing."

He just snorted. "Surprising isn't it?"

She raised an eyebrow of her own now, leaning back in her chair. "I was going to say that it was exactly what I would have expected of my little brother."

"Then apparently you don't know me very well," he replied, leaning back himself and crossing his arms, smirk firmly in place.

Moira shrugged. "Seems pretty much in line with coming forward to admit to a mistake that you had already gotten away with."

Tom felt a muscle in his check twitch, but he kept himself otherwise still. "Does it now? So, twice your fuck up of a brother has managed to do 'The Right Thing' then. And what has it gotten me, Moira?" He held up a hand, ticking off fingers. "First time: kicked out of Starfleet and effectively exiled from the only life I'd ever known. Second time: thrown into prison." The smirk deepened to a sneer. "I'd say that's a pretty good argument for staying the hell away from any more heroism in the future, wouldn't you?"

Moira stared back at him, uncharacteristically silent. Tom kept his expression impassive, refusing to allow himself to respond to the growing sadness in his sister's eyes, ignoring the twisting sensation in his own gut.

"Tom..." Moira finally began, reaching a hand towards him.

Tom blanched and stood quickly, backing away from her touch. "Goodbye, Moira," he said quickly and then turned to walk from the room.

He had made it halfway to the door when he heard her words, quiet, knowing he would be listening for them. "If – when – you're ready, Tom, I'll still be here."

Pausing mid-step, he turned just far enough that she would see his slight nod of acknowledgment before continuing on and through the door.

Once safely on the other side, Tom slumped against the prison's wall, clenching his eyes closed and swallowing hard against the bile rising in his throat.

.

.

The small blessing was that she hadn't dreamed of Ries. His face – always bloodied, burned, terrified – still flashed through her mind often, but only when awake.

Then again, she really hadn't slept enough in the last couple of weeks to dream of anything.

By 'day' – whatever that meant – she had been leading the repairs of the _Val Jean_, trying to work a small miracle with a diminished tech crew and get the ship back in space within Chakotay's two week deadline. During her 'off' hours, she had officially been continuing to pull technology and tactical information from _Dreadnought_'s database.

What she had actually been doing had been far more consuming. And it was – finally – done.

Materializing on the base's small transporter pad, she leaned against the fortunately nearby wall, lightheaded and slightly nauseated. Clearly she had pushed herself beyond the limits of even the extended endurance that her mixed heritage granted her.

Grateful for the empty corridors that the early morning hour ensured, she stumbled down to her bunk room. Entering and dropping her toolkit beside the door, she managed to make it across the small room to her bed before collapsing into unconsciousness.

Minutes, hours or days later, she woke not to a knock this time but to the persistent buzz of the hand-held communicator still in her hip pocket. Eyes closed and still half asleep, she tried to ignore it before considering throwing it hard against the opposite wall. In the end, though, she fumbled her way into her pocket and pulled it out, managing to switch it to active and mumble, "Torres here."

:_B'Elanna:_ Kurt's voice and in an unreadable tone that she had never heard from him before. That tone managed to rouse her from her semi-somnolent state. :_You need to come up here. Now_.:

Opening her eyes, she squinted at the chronometer beside the bed until the numbers made sense to her. And, when they did, everything else did as well. "Right. I'll be there in a minute."

Ignoring the protestations of various muscles and the renewed nausea as she stood, she moved to the door, almost tripping over her toolkit as she did so. Out of habit, she reached down for it before stopping herself and leaving it in its place: this time, the urgency in Bendera's voice had nothing to do with a mechanical issue.

And, for the first time, a flutter of uncertainty moved through her.

There was movement in the corridors now, but she pushed quickly past her fellow Maquis who were heading on shift, nodding only briefly in response to several greetings on her way to the command center.

Chakotay wasn't sitting this time.

He and Bendera were both standing, clearly in the middle of an intense, if not heated, discussion. Chakotay had his back to her as she entered; Bendera was gesticulating and in the middle of some argument which he swallowed mid-sentence as she entered the room.

Chakotay turned to see her and then turned back to Kurt. "Give us the room, Kurt."

Kurt hesitated, looking around the captain to catch her eye. It dawned on her belatedly that he had been defending her – and that, with that look, he was offering to stand beside her, even against Chakotay.

For whatever reason, that caused the flutter of uncertainty to grow to a full-blown almost panic.

Nonetheless, she gave the slightest shake of her head. This had been her decision, her plan, and she neither needed nor wanted Kurt to fight her battles for her.

He gave her a grim smile and a nod. "I'll go get some coffee from the mess then."

Chakotay didn't even acknowledge his departure. Nor did he turn back towards B'Elanna as the other man exited.

She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, trying hard not to feel like an errant schoolgirl called in to the principal's office. Unable to take the silence for long, she blurted out, "Look, I took care of everything." Unconsciously, she moved towards the terminals, ready to call up the data she needed to defend her decisions. "Every eventuality, every possible risk..."

Chakotay stopped her movement with a hand on her arm, keeping her from the computer and turning her to face him. "'Every possible risk?'" he repeated, his voice low and unreadable. "And what would those risks be, B'Elanna?"

That quiet voice flustered her. "Well...anything..." she stammered. "_Dreadnought_'s program centers around predicting the probability of hypotheticals. I spent the last two weeks with it devising counters to any and all probable obstacles to it completing its mission: encounters with the Cardassians or Starfleet, navigating the plasma storms, avoiding detection and tracking..."

"Did you tell it how to avoid revealing to the Cardassians that this base was still in existence?"

That stopped her. "What?"

B'Elanna wasn't sure if Chakotay actually took a step forward, but somehow the small space between them shrank. "The existence of the base, B'Elanna. Right now, the Cardassians, overconfident bastards that they are, more than likely are assuming that they have blown this base to oblivion. That might just change when the missile that they sent to destroy it shows back up in their space."

Her stomachs flipped. "I didn't..."

"And did you give it a counter to the Cardassian politicians who might just be able to use a major strike within their own space as a rallying cry to finally get the resources and funding they need to wipe out the whole Maquis movement? Did you and _Dreadnought_ come up with a solution for the hypothetical risk, B'Elanna?"

Chakotay's voice was still quiet, reasonable, even, she realized, sad. Hurt.

_Kahless_, what had she done?

"I didn't know..." she tried again, but the sentence trailed to silence.

Chakotay let that silence stretch for a minute. "I thought I had earned your trust." The disappointment was now clear and bitter. Then, turning on his heel, he walked out of the command center without another word or gesture.

B'Elanna tried once and then twice to call after him, but no words would form. As the door closed behind him, she sank down into one of the command chairs, staring dumbly at the monitor which showed only the _Val Jean_ in orbit above Alpha 441.

.

"Going somewhere?"

B'Elanna jumped at Bendera's voice and almost dropped the wad of garments in her arms. Refusing to turn and meet his eyes, she moved back to the disordered piles of belongings strewn around her bunk. "Just saving Chakotay the time and effort of making it official."

Kurt moved into the room from the doorway. "Did he say something about wanting you to leave?" he asked neutrally.

She snorted. "No. He didn't say much at all." And she felt a flush rising in her face as she remembered his few words. And that damned soft voice. She fussed with folding a garment, avoiding Kurt's gaze and hoping the heat in her cheeks would go unnoticed. "He didn't have to." Then, drawing a deep breath, she looked up. "He can't want me to stay after this."

"Why not?"

Again, that neutral tone, as if they were discussing the daily roster of engineering assignments. She let her annoyance flare: at least it was safer than the emotion she was feeling a moment before. "'Why not?'" she retorted. "Because I fucked up, Kurt. I disobeyed his explicit orders – and the kicker is that those orders were given for good reason. I was arrogant and hot-headed, and I've put all of our lives at even greater risk than they already were." _And I broke his trust. _The flush crept back up as she left that last unsaid. "I fucked up," she finally repeated and tasted bitterness in her mouth as she went back to stuffing items into her bag.

"And you think that makes you special?"

B'Elanna froze and then turned to glare up at Kurt who was still, to all appearances, utterly at ease. "_Special_?" she spat back at him.

Bendera just shrugged. "Special – different – somehow apart?" He gestured at the bag. "That, for some reason, that would mean you would need to leave?"

She stared at him, bafflement trumping anger. "Did you hear a word that I just said? About what I did?"

Kurt sighed then and pushed away a heap of her belongings so that he could sit down on the edge of the bed. "Every word. But, B'Elanna," his voice had shed its neutrality and was now filled with a particular understanding, "this isn't a league of angels. And it isn't Starfleet. All of us out here: we've made our share of mistakes."

Her mouth twisted into a bitter smirk. "Mistakes like this?"

"Many of us – yes," was the simple response. "Or worse."

B'Elanna sat too then, heavily, fingering a forgotten garment in her hands. She'd never been good with making mistakes – they were why she had always preferred dealing with simple and straight-forward machines over people and their complicated relationships. Less opportunity for mistakes. And the mistakes one did make were usually repairable.

She had no idea where to start in repairing this. Whenever she had screwed up enough in the past, her answer every time had been to run.

Like her father had done.

Like she had been about to do now.

"Anyway, you might have gotten a partial pass on this one," Kurt interrupted her thoughts. At her questioning look, he continued, "_Dreadnought _seems to have disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

Kurt pulled a small PADD from his pocket and handed it to her. "Swallowed by a particularly nasty plasma storm, we assume. Chakotay had us tracking it – there was some interference from some sort of tetryon beam as _Dreadnought _was passing the edge of the storm and, when the interference cleared, the missile was gone."

B'Elanna stared somewhat blankly at the readings on the PADD which confirmed his words before looking back up at Bendera. "So it's over?"

"It's over," Kurt confirmed with a nod.

She felt lightheaded and disorientated with relief – and suddenly very glad she was sitting down. Gripping the PADD, she took a couple of steadying breaths.

"Thanks," she finally offered with a lop-sided grin.

"Any time, Torres," Kurt grinned back. "Just remember to pass on the favor sometime when someone else manages to completely fuck up. We fallen souls need to stick together," and he threw her a rakish wink before lightly patting her knee and standing to head for the door.

After he left, she looked back down at the PADD that he left behind, puzzling out that tetryon beam and sending out a silent prayer to any deities that cared to listen that this really was the end of _ATR-4107_.

_._

_._

_Seven months later..._

_"We've just passed through some kind of coherent tetryon beam." _

B'Elanna's reaction to Tuvok's words was visceral, a stab of dread that pulled at some memory which she couldn't immediately place. Muscles across her neck and shoulders bunched in anticipation of...what?

Before she could place the memory, Chakotay was asking for more speed and her attention was back on the present and those thirty-nine year old impulse engines.

"The wave is continuing to accelerate. It will intercept us in eight seconds... Five..." Tuvok's voice again and, then, in those last seconds before the wave hit, the memory surfaced.

_Gods, no..._

.

Tom had been expecting her for weeks – or, if not her exactly, someone. Someone in a command red uniform with at least a moderately impressive number of pips on his or her collar.

Someone who would give him another chance at that deal that he had left sitting on the table half a year before.

Even a Federation penal colony was not entirely cut off from the outside world and between the newsfeeds and the first hand reports brought in by the steady trickle of inmates arriving from the DMZ, it was clear that the Maquis had not only gained Starfleet's full attention but that the Fleet was becoming fairly desperate in its attempts to neutralize the dissidents.

Desperate enough to dig back up their buried disgrace.

"Tom Paris? Kathryn Janeway. I served with your father aboard the _Al-Batani_."

Of course she had.

"I was wondering if we could go someplace and talk."

And there it was.

"About what?"

"About a job we'd like you to do for us."

He had already made his decision long before, sometime during those interminable nights of staring out the small window of his penal colony 'quarters' at the upside down constellations of Auckland's January summer sky.

One more fuck up among the many. How could it possibly matter anymore anyway?

"Well then, I guess I'm yours."


End file.
